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JACK (game)
JACK is a video game developed by Brock Productions for the Wii U. The game is a mix of action-adventure and turn-based RPG elements and is inspired by Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy, and Ni No Kuni, among others. The games titular protagonist is Jack, a jackelope who has been blessed with the ability to conjure Mana and travels the universe to save it from destruction. Synopsis Story The game begins with a story about the creation of the worlds. Years long past, the great dragon Kyggzo created a new dimension using the magical powers of Mana, which keep the universe together. He creates the great Spirit Tree in the middle which controls the Mana, as well as dozens of planets and stars that fill the dimension. Although the land is full of life, he finds it hard to rule, and creates the race of Azureguards. The Azureguards are powered by Mana and work for the great dragon. However, they begin to take control over everything and become tyranical leaders. Kyggzo calls upon great heroes to defeat him so that the Azureguards reign will end; however, he leaves behind 12 scales so that the Mana of the universe will continue to exist. Dangers of the Forest The young hero Jack is a simple farmhand who is constantly ridiculed for his odd antlers; most others he know are bunnies, but he is a Jackalope. Recently, young girls from his village have been disappearing, and monsters have been roaming free in the nearby wilds; these conditions lead the town into a panic, and the young boys of the town (including Jack) are trained in battling so that they can be prepared to protect the town if need be. One day, a strange blue meteorite falls from the sky into a nearby forest, and Jack is the only trained soldier brave enough to check it out. His mother is hesitant to let him go, but eventually lets him leave, giving him the gift of her old bracelet. He takes his gear and heads out to the forest. The forest is full of mysteries and cannot be navigated without a guide. Jack explores the outside of the forest, fighting off monsters, until he discovers a mysterious temple. Inside, he defeats a large monster and finds a chest containing a beautiful Ruby. The Ruby happens to be a perfect fit into his bracelet, and an old fire spirit emerges. The spirit calls himself Flare and declares that he is now Jack's Familiar because he found him. Flare says that he can navigate the forest and help Jack on his quest to save the world. Jack is a little concerned and has no plans to save the world, but the two continue through the forest, now able to navigate it. They eventually find a much larger tower in the very middle, and see a glowing blue light on top. Jack and the Ruby combine forces and scale the tower, defeating many monsters and beating puzzles on their way up. At the top they are attacked by a large, blue scaled bird creature, but they prevail and defeat it. The bird dies and leaves behind a blue scale, which the Familiar claims is a scale of Kyggzo. Jack doesn't believe him, and they decide to head back to the village together. On their way back, they see that the amount of monsters around has increased, and when they get back to the village, the head honcho informs them that almost all of the childrens in the village have been kidnapped by evil monsters roaming the wilds. Jack decides to head back out and stop the monsters once and for all. Jack and his familiar head back out to the wilds, finding that the monster population has grown a lot since they last went out. They continue onwards to the East Plains, finding new monsters and new threats. A small village populated with Monkys is in the middle of the plains, and offers to help the two with free rests. They accept, and head back out with new info: strange noises have been coming from the top of the mountain, but any attempts to find out more have been thwarted by a giant golem. They head to the nearby plateau to investigate, and discover the golem for themselves, who is blocking the path and refuses to wake up. They continue onwards to the rest of the plateau to find a way to wake the golem. Gameplay The gameplay of JACK is a combination between action-adventure platformers and menu based RPGs. Exploration in the game takes place across vast landscapes that can be transverced by the main characters in a third-person perspective using a variety of techniques they learn. These range from simply jumping to swinging across poles and other advanced skills. Although exploration of the worlds is mostly non-linear, areas must be reached in a certain order in order to progress the story and unlock new worlds to search. Over the course of the story, Jack must complete dungeons containing puzzles and dangerous battles. Each dungeon has a base difficulty out of 10, but Jack can chose any diffuculty up to 3 ranks away (for example, if the base diffuculty is 6, he can chose a difficulty of 3 through 9). The difficulty affects the level of enemies, damage dealt by traps, and time limit. At the end of each dungeon is a strong Boss that requires more strategy than other enemies. Getting to and defeating the boss completes the dungeon, and doing so in a short amount of time and with higher difficulty gives a better prize. Towns and cities are spread throughout the landscape, filled with characters that can be talked to. These characters can sell items, provide tips, or help further the story. Some characters give quests that can be fulfilled to unlock new content and gain rewards, and usually involve defeating certain enemies or exploring certain locations. Jack can invest money in these towns to grow them, unlock new quests and stores, and increase the continous cashflow that Jack earns over time. Battle System Spread across the overworld are battlable enemies that spawn semi-randomly. When Jack contacts an enemy, Jack's friends appear and the enemies friends join him as a ring appears around the two parties, starting the battle. Each combatant has an HP meter and an Mana Meter. When a compatant's HP is lowered all the way to 0, they collapse on the ground and cannot battle anymore unless they are revived. If all of Jack's party is defeated, they must restart from the most recent save point. The goal is to defeat all of the opponents to end the battle and reap the rewards. Unlike most menu based RPGs, each encounter is battled out in a 3D space. Transition between the original landscape and the battle arena is seamless because they both occupy the same space. Each combatant can freely move around and jump, and attack in any direction. A feature similar to Z-Targeting in the Legend of Zelda series appears, where an enemy can be locked onto and the camera follows it, allowing for easier attacking. A dodge feature is present in the game, allowing characters to quickly move out of the way of attacks in any direction. Each character has three types of attacks; standard attacks, which involve melees and sometimes ranged attacks, special attacks, which can occur after being charged and are more powerful than standard attacks, and Skill attacks, which can be performed only if the corresponding Card is being used and sometimes use Mana. The Mana bar, which is used for some of these Skill attacks, slowly refills over battle, although it can also be charged with some Skills. Characters with higher Recharge stats recharge the Mana faster. Special spirits composed of elemental energy, called Familiars, assist Jack in battles. Jack can have up to three bracelets on his arm, each with a crystal. These crystals detirmine which Familiar is called, and other crystals can be used on the bracelet to augment their abilities. One unique move that only Jack can perform is Binding. This allows him to bind with a Familiar and enter into a supercharged form, giving him higher stats and a special elemental move that can majorly damage opponents. Binding can only be performed after the Familiar has charged enouh energy by attacking. In addition to these moves, characters can also block with their shields. A well timed block can stop damage entirely, and a perfect block can lead to a counter attack that deals high amounts of damage. However, some attacks can break blocks. This, in addition to dodging, allow characters to go entire battles without taking any damage. Characters can also use items to recover health or perform other special effects, Mastery of all of these moves is important for defeating the most powerful creatures. Leveling Up Unlike leveling up in traditional games, stat boosts gained through leveling are based upon many factors. As characters battle, moves they make will go towards specific stats; attacking with magic will go towards the Magic stat, whilst dodging will go towards the Speed stat. This does not immediately increase those stats; instead, when a level up occurs on the character, their stats will increase much more in those stats than others. The other most important thing for increasing stats is the Diet. When characters eat specific foods to restore health, they gain certain boosts for some stats. Meat, for example, boosts Attack and Defense, whilst vegetables boost Speed and Magic. Both of these ways of increasing stats are just as important. Familiars also level up, but in a very different way. Whilst Jack and his allies are exploring the world, Jack can decide to leave behind one of his crystals to develop in the Crystal Grower. Doing so will slowly boost its stats. However, after a while, it will start to loose growth, and eventually won't be growing at all. To allow the crystal to develop again, it must fight in battles and eventually become ready to return to the Crystal Grower. Thus, the system is similar to leveling up characters, but requires more choice. Card System JACK features a card system which is relatively similar to the Materia system prevalent in Final Fantasy 7. Each character starts off with a few slots in which they can equip cards; these cards have a variety of features, from adding additional skills to boosting stats. The exact types are listed below: *'Skill Cards': These cards grant the character with a special, usable skill during battle. These skills can be used by tapping their card or assigning them to some of the buttons on the chosen controller. This is the only way to perform magical attacks that use Mana and deal elemental damage; however, some cards perform physical damage or do no damage at all. *'Effect Cards': These cards grant the character with a special effect during battle. These range from general stat boosts to elemental modifiers on weapons to other special effects. Each card has a star ranking, just like the others, but it can be increased by combining cards of the same type that have been used in battle a fair amount; these cards have a higher ranking and their effects are increased. Because they can be leveled up, Effect Cards have less variety than other types of cards, but are just as plentiful. *'Chance Cards': These cards have a slight chance of happening during certain parts of the battle. The percentage of these events happening depends on the rank of the card, which can level up in much the same way as an Effect Card. The effects given by Chance Cards are usually very powerful, especially if their percentage of happening is lower than others, but they are not very likely to activate often. *'Enemy Cards': At the beginning of the game, Jack is given an Enemy Bibliography with a page for each area of the world, and a Skill Card called Enemy Scan. Characters can use Enemy Scan on an enemy to add it to the Bibliography. Scanning multiple times levels up the enemy within the Bibliography. If the enemy is fully leveled up, and all enemies in the area are scanned, the enemy turns into a usable card of either the Skill, Effect, or Chance variety. These cards are generally either very weak or very powerful, depending on the enemy, and reflect their characteristics and moves. *'amiibo Cards:' Added in a patch in the game. Scanning certain amiibo unlocks special cards that can only be used a certain number of times. They can have varying effects, and can be very powerful, so they are quite similar to enemy cards. Most feature effects that are similar to the amiibo figure scanned to unlock them, such as a firery inferno for Mario. Throughout their journey, characters are given many opportunities to increase their card capacity. These increases in capacity can come from rank ups, story events, or special items. Characters with more slots are better fit for battle as they have more skills and boosts avaliable to them. Characters Jack ??? ??? Items Over their quest, the main characters will encounter many types of items. Used Items can be used in battle or in the field to provide effects, such as healing or repelling enemies. Equipped Items provide effects and are not used at any specific time; these include weapons, jewelry, and even the cards. Key Items cannot be thrown away and do not provide certain effects when used unless in the right spot. These are only used for story purposes, generally, so they won't see too much use throughout the game. Crystals Throughout the game, Jack finds 6 crystals, although he only has enough bracelets to call 3 Familiars at once. They each have 4 stats: Attack, Speed, Defense, and Luck. *'Fire': The hotheaded (no pun intended) Fire Familiar, held in a Ruby. He has the strongest attacks in the game once properly trained, but his other stats are low, with average speed. Binding major increases Jacks attack, as well as his speed, but lowers his defense and other stats. He is an important character, guiding Jack throughout the game after he is acquired in a temple outside of the forest in the South Plains. *'Wind': The fluttery Wind Familiar is mostly strong in Speed, although it also has some good Attack. They are held inside of the Diamond and can be very fast while doing good damage. Possession of the Diamond awakens the Stone Golem in the Sif Mountains, and its Wind powers are often used for some puzzles within the Sif dungeons. The Diamond is found in a temple near the Launch Pad. *'Water': The Water Familiar is held inside of a Sapphire found in the Southern Canyon. Water is a jack of all trades, not being overly powerful or weak in any stat. It is very important for Baldr, since it can refill the watering holes throughout the planet and restore order to the world. It is also used for a variety of puzzles on Freyja. *'Earth: '''The Earth Familiar is contained within an Emerald, found deep within the Baldr hilds after restoring the water sport north of the city. It has high defense and average attack, but dreadful speed. It is important to the quests at Baldr, just like Water, because it brings life back to the planet with the help of the now running water. *'Ice:' The Ice Familiar is contained within the Topaz crystal, found within the depths of the Ancient Cavern on Freyja, right outside of it's dungeon. It is used to freeze water, allowing for much freer navigation of the Freyja world, as well as completion of many puzzles. It has good Defense and Speed but low Attack. *'Electric': The Electric Familiar is found within the Bismuth crystal. It has high speed and luck (the only of the Familiars to specialize in Luck), but low defense and average attack. Although it has generally high stats when first found, it has unusually low stat growth as it is processed compared to the other Familiars. Despite this, it is still valuable, as it can strike fast and gain many critical hits. It is found on Odin and is important to exploring most of the world and solving electricity-related puzzles. Support A few crystals can be found that boost the Familiars stats in certain ways. Each crystal exists 3 times in the world, one for each bracelet if Jack so desires. *'Damage Up!:' Increases the damage that the Familiar deals. *'Resistance Up!:' Familiars can take more damage before being disabled. *'Extra Elemental:' Increases elemental power of attacks. *'Luck Up!:''' Increases luck, influencing things such as chance of critical hits. Sif The lush green landscapes of Sif are home to the most peaceful of all the galactic species, with anthromorphic bunnies, pigs, and deer being most prevalent. Giant trees inhabit the forest and spring seems to never end. A peaceful village, home to the many anthromorphic animal species of the land, is located in the southwest. A giant forest sorrounds it and the nearby South and East plains. To the south is a small shoreline and cove that contain a few beachhouses and little else, besides the third dungeon. To the north is bed of a mountain and the mountain peak, each with their own secrets. A Launch Pad is located on the mountain bed, just north of the village, and is connected by a mountain path that is normally blocked. Enemies Baldr The harsh landscape of Baldr is hardly sustainable for life, and thus most creatures roaming the wastelands are either mechanical or undead. Jack lands near the middle of the inhabited area in a small impact site, and going south leads him to the main Canyon. A dried up lake is in the middle, which can be filled, and a village is to the east where most of the life on the planet is. West of the canyon is the cliffside next to the Impact Well, and to the east of there is the Desert with many sandy creatures. Finally, connecting the Desert and the Village is a Spring area, where water will flow after completing the nearby temple. Once water begins to flow, the area is a little more lively. Enemies Freyja The lush green landscapes of Sif are home to the most peaceful of all the galactic species, with anthromorphic bunnies, pigs, and deer being most prevalent. Giant trees inhabit the forest and spring seems to never end. Enemies Odin The lush green landscapes of Sif are home to the most peaceful of all the galactic species, with anthromorphic bunnies, pigs, and deer being most prevalent. Giant trees inhabit the forest and spring seems to never end. Enemies Allies Cards Skills Effects Chance amiibo This game only supports some of the more popular amiibo, such as the first Wave of Super Smash Bro.'s amiibo and the Super Mario series line. Category:Games Category:Wii U Games Category:Original Games Category:Brock Productions Category:Fan Games